A two-parter -

Today, I walked Saihan mountain today (though I suppose it’s not the ‘real’ Saihan mountain, just a mountain with the letter written on it). My immediate steps from the door put me into a new world. That may have been due to the fact I was wearing a new a different pair of shoes, but what of it? The spring in my step was simply a noticeable difference.

            And so I walked. I had some idea of a destination in mind (the top of the mountain), yet I only knew that that point must be included. The how and when were yet to be established. Well, on my way to the base, I remembered walking along a cow trail following one side of a narrow valley that ‘Saihan’ mountain and a small hill created. Well, I knew I must walk straight along that flow, right down the center of this river valley.

            After winding along for a ways, I encountered a small family of cows (well they had to be a family, didn’t they? There were maybe three or four adults and two kids. At least, that’s what I think now…funny, when you look at a group of cows you never really think about how they may be related to one another. I mean, maybe a cow farmer actually thinks about the relations of cows…I do not know). Either way, at this point, I decided to begin my hike. Three steps up from the dried streambed in the valley an overwhelming sense of déjà vu struck me. These mountains were in Scotland once. Well maybe not these exact mountains. Scotland was more damp and had much cheaper whiskey…but the eyeful of greens…that and all of the rounded stones that make you feel like an ignorant little ant on this earth. The drunken giant’s Stonehenge, way out here in the steppe of Mongolia. Or maybe the rocks look more like a giant decided to unload himself right then and there (who’s to say he didn’t. You ever seen a giant take a dump?).

            Anyways, it was incredible. I couldn’t help it, the kid in me leapt out and ran up the nearest mound of giant crap I could and proceeded to play ‘hot lava’ all the way to the top. On top of most of the rock piles were owoo, a pile of small rocks collected from all around the mountain with a stick in the center and a prayer flag tied to the top of the stick. Hell, even Mongols love their giant crap too. Suddenly, I was a little boy again. But not the true sense of a little boy. More the sense of a man (if I can be so bold as to call myself that) who has lost some part of his youth and dreams of regaining it in fits and starts. Like the young boy Bon Iver uses in his “Holocene” music video. I was the boy who was finally able to escape into nature, travel around my hills, fields and lakes by day, and live in a quiet cabin lit by candlelight at night. I truly was that boy in that moment. My thoughts were foreign to me, but more than welcome. I was finally myself again. And after that boy mounted every owoo, spread his wings at the top of each and pretended to fly, and descended back down to continue “Lava”, that boy saw a drainage flowing down the mountain and decided to follow it down the mountain. But there was a piece of the ‘man’ that returned with him. No longer was I the little boy, but I was not back to the jaded 23 year old either. And on the long walk back to my home, a sort of contentedness crept over me. Perhaps it could be called happiness, but that wasn’t my mind at the time. It was simply a feeling of ease.

            For as long as I care to remember I have been searching for one thing in life. It has very little to do with physical possessions or physical desires. I want to say it has little to do with mental desires as well, but, somehow, that just doesn’t make any rational sense. What I want is a realization. A realization of a deep connection with some one or some thing.

            Maybe that is why I ended up here in the first place. I felt a need to abandon all I had in order to find something I did not have. That may have been the wrong approach. What I abandoned were simply superficial realities: showers, electric heat, internet, and the like. What I discovered was that I already possessed what I wanted all along. I do have a deep connection with some one. But he isn’t always here. Sometimes I find him lodged in the pages of a book. Sometimes he jumps out of a pile of boulders. Sometimes his smile twitches at the edges of my mouth when I talk with a friend, or a complete stranger.

            This isn’t necessarily a new discovery. I found him long ago, deeply entrenched in the diversion of music. I would nod along to some song I was particularly inclined to, and there he would be and a flood of euphoria would wash over me. What is most frustrating is the unavoidable truth that he cannot be with me always. The hardest times are when he doesn’t appear for weeks, or when his visits are merely fleeting.

            He is the reason I took up meditation, and soon moved on to include yoga. His is the mind I envy, yet possess all the same. Ironically, he shares the same mind with one who obsesses to control his presence – something he finds incredibly annoying. And so, while one battles to control the other, the other simply turns his cheek and marches on solemnly, waiting for the moment that the other releases his hold so he might turn around and embrace him…so they may be one once more. It truly is a dance to maintain a gentle balance. Both will walk with me for the rest of my life. And both will remember this hike as another moment where they embraced.

The story so far

Do you know what it is to call a place home? I won’t pretend like I do. But I’m beginning to figure it out. It has little to do with physical possessions or time spent or family. Or maybe it is a culmination of all of those things and more. But the feeling certainly can’t be identified with either of them individually. I’ve never been good at expressing myself concisely, so bear with me. My home is a place for my mind and that alone. Don’t think that I mean to say that home is in the mind; I wouldn’t say that either.

I remember a time when I was younger and my parents once told me a kind of ghost story about my home. They said this valley had something over people, that once they lived here a year, they’d never leave. In college, my friends would tease me for talking about “my valley”, saying they didn’t want to get brainwashed and join some creepy cult. Well I never stood a chance as a little boy climbing giant aspen trees, taking deep breaths of my pines all around, growing up to the clear streams that haunt every path through the woods. I ask myself every day what it is that I want to be when I grow up. I look at my friends around me. One loves fishing and would give anything to be on the river any time, any day. One loves to play music more than I’ve loved anything or anyone. One would sell his soul to study the Rockies til the end of time. Well I want a piece of all those things, but none so desperately as them. Do I lack something? Why can’t I find one thing to love like they can?

Well maybe I’m better off than they. I may not know what I love to do, but I sure as hell know where I love to do it. Who says you have to find out what you want to do before you can find where you want to live? What if where you live is more important to you than what you do? Well at this point I know where this life will be lived. First I need to groom myself before I return home. It will be like waiting for the embrace of someone I love for two years. I’ve been waiting for such a long time to feel your arms around me again. It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen your smile. Such a long time since I’ve felt so inexplicably happy. Such a long time since the world just fell away. To smell her again in two years as a new…man? (maybe boy is the right term) anyways…to smell her again will make this all worth it.

A short story...

            Morning today and I felt like I had had quite enough of this. I couldn’t really sleep last night. I was kept awake by the sweet sounds of Mongolian propaganda coming in over the family TV. Not that the political scene bothers me in the least. I am more than happy to see how involved the people here are in their government, and how the government cares enough about every constituent to dedicate so much air time to informing them (which is much more than the US can say). Propaganda simply is the reality of what exactly I fall asleep to every night. All-in-all, the point is I don’t particularly enjoy trying to sleep to any kind of television. Woe is me.

            Breakfast came. A fried egg with some pseudo-sausage (delicious actually), bread and cucumber (yes, freakin cucumber! I eat it now…it happened). I walk outside and see it rained all night. Actually, I’m excited at the prospect of walking to school (it’s only a 5-7 minute walk anyways). Nope, my mom, giant heart that she has, pushes me to the car and gives me a ride to school. Well, just to spite the world for not letting me have my fresh, rain-soaked air, I open the window all the way and breathe it all in. My mom looks over at me as I’m rolling it down, but only laughs and says some gibberish (to me, that is) because she sees a giddy smile on my face. We drive through the destroyed streets of my seoum.

            I should explain. The past two weeks have shown this part of Mongolia some real storms. Sorry Idaho, you may be “high-mountain desert”, and you may have some storms of your own, but you ain’t got nothing on a Mongolian squall. Last Tuesday I came home during lunch and it was only drizzling. Next thing I know, my house is shaking for an hour, then my mom (again) forces me into the car to give me a ride to school. Well I had no idea an hour of rain could create five-foot deep fissures that look like mini-Grand Canyons. Either way, next time…water-slide!

            So mom and I are driving to school as I look at the deep, getting deeper, fissures. The toll this storm has taken on the seoum is apparent. Telephone poles are nearly low-fiving the ground, and wires are broken and buzzing. The hum brings me straight back to summers in Idaho, eating lunch on a roof, taking a break from scrubbing windows and listening to bees drift close for a sniff of, no doubt, a delicious sandwich made by my irreplaceable mother. Shit. My gloomy day has turned pretty happy. It’s okay, though, I have plenty of time in language class and technical training to get pissed off again.

            Well I’m obviously slacking, because I come out of language class four hours later pretty content. Well I get right on it. How could I be so content when the little town around me is getting destroyed by that bitch, nature? Well, maybe it’s because the town has dealt with the bitch before. They don’t let it get them down. They drive their motorcycles just as fast. Plus, now they have a new place to hang out in their free time. Fuck, am I really gonna see the bright side of everything today?

            Alright, I give in. This place is pretty incredible. While the other half of the world goes to sleep waiting for June 25^th to come around, I’m halfway through the day learning how to waltz (no I didn’t know how to before this), and swing-dancing to a Mongolian song translated as “Travelling Bird”. Now I’m sitting in my room listening to a country playlist, less reminiscing about the States, more basking in the joy of bringing swing to my little seoum in Mongolia.

            There is a truth in that little diatribe somewhere. I doubt I’ll get there, but I’ll try. Pre-Service Training is designed to test and build you. Your weaknesses become blaringly apparent, and your strengths are tried, so they better be true. The highs are high, and the lows are low. When you want to be alone, when you want to stew in your sadness, when you miss home to death and can almost taste that delicious Arrogant Bastard, go watch a cheesy-ass, awesome romantic comedy with your new best friends, listen to shitty old American music with them, tell crazy stories about yourself you wouldn’t tell anyone. And don’t question the fact that they are your new best friends. Unfortunate reality (or maybe fortunate, depending on who you are), your friends at home will always be with you, but they can’t comfort you halfway across the globe. Take Crosby, Stills & Nash to heart. If you can’t be with the ones you love, love the ones you’re with. Then, go home, look at your Mongolian language notes for 5 minutes (then realize that if you look at any more of another language today, you’ll stick that jumbo-sized Snickers bar up…well you get it), then read until you’re exhausted, and fade off to the beautiful Mongolian songs spouting from the TV in the next room. The last thought that crosses your mind is: well…at least I’m here…

Alright, real quick entry


My host family is pretty awesome. I have a mom and dad that are 36, and a little brother that's 10. Right now, our interactions consist of smiling and nodding, and a bit of them pointing at things and saying what they are with me repeating. Still, it's been a crazy experience.

The other night, I was sitting in my new bed, and it hit me. This whole part of the world is incredibly different from everything I've known. As one of my sitemates and I were walking through our seoum (town), we heard the wind blowing through the telephone wires. And, of course, being the complete nerds that we are, we both thought how that sound reminded us of the desert wasteland on your way to Desert Colossus in the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. What the hell is wrong with us? I mean, we were associating a 'real' sound with a sound that was designed to simulate that actual sound. I guess, in some ways, that's America in a nutshell.
Don't get me wrong, I miss home to death sometimes, but I already feel Mongolia growing on me. I don't know if it's because the "culture shock" hasn't quite set in, or what. But going home doesn't feel like an option at this point. Real talk: this is the hardest thing I have ever done, and I often wonder where I am. But then a feeling follows that I can't explain, other than to say that "I'm where I should be". It's really a mixture. Sometimes (when I'm watching True Blood, or reading GOT), I miss the shit outta American culture. I just want to go to a country bar, drink whiskey and maybe a few too many good beers, then swingdance with girls that are wearing too little clothing...literally the title segment of True Blood. Then I remember how cleansing just the first week has been. The tears I've cried for all the people at home, and for the people I can never see again...they make me appreciate who I am and why I am.

For those who this means something to, Popop's picture sits by my bed every night, reading Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle to me. And I imagine that he is there next to me, laughing, and asking me if a mosquito bit him after I tap his shoulder to get his attention...what a joker.

Ben